Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Marx Sipping Tea at Nehru’s Dhaba

  12 November 2011

  by GAURAV JOGI PATHANIA
  A student of modern Delhi would hardly be aware of the word ‘dhaba’. Thousands of Delhi-ites are oblivious of the existence of a jungle called Jawaharlal Nehru University, right at the heart of South Delhi. Despite being surrounded by big malls, continental hotels and very expensive coffee cafés, JNU has always been famous for its dhabas. These dhabas are the nocturnal hotspot of the university and famous for their tea and samosa, not for coffee. Instead of what the (…)

• On Hindutva Politics and Terror

  12 November 2011

  BOOK REVIEW
  by MAHTAB ALAM
  Godse’s Children: Hindutva Terror in India by Subhash Gatade; Pharos Media & Publishing Private Ltd, New Delhi; 2011; pp. 400; Price: Rs 360.
  The Saffron Condition: Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neoliberal India by Subhash Gatade; Three Essays Collective, Gurgaon; 2011; pp. X+475; Price: 500.
  In December 2010, when Swami Aseemanand, a ‘former’ RSS pracharak and key functionary of the Sangh backed Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, admitted before a (…)

• One Piece of Encouraging News

  8 November 2011, by SC

  As we go to press the government has today given the oil companies a free run to hike petrol prices by Rs 1.82 per litre that would further fuel inflation which has already recorded a massive rise of late to reach the double digit as food prices are causing unbearable strain on the common man.
  And today itself the special judge of the trial court on the 2G scam has rejected the bail pleas of DMK MP Kanimozhi and four others involved in the scam despite the CBI having made it abundantly (…)

• Black Money: Political Will Missing

  8 November 2011, by Arun Kumar

  [This is the third article in the series on black money by the author. The other two articles, first published in The Tribune and The Hindu respectively, were reproduced in this journal’s July 30, 2011 issue (“Tacking Black Economy: SC Takes Control from Government”) and October 15, 2011 issue (“The Cost of the Black Economy”) with due acknowledgement.]
  The government’s intention of tackling either the problem of black economy or bringing back money stashed abroad is suspect. The money (…)

• DVC Oustees Suspend Agitation

  8 November 2011

  The people, mostly tribals of Jharkhand and West Bengal, displaced due to the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) project since the fifties—who were on dharna and relay fast at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar from October 17, 2011—were able to wrest a concrete assurance from Union Energy Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde who met a delegation of the oustees alongwith social activists at his office in the Capital on October 24. The meeting was held at the initiative of Swami Agnivesh. Earlier the displaced (…)

• Tribute to Dr Rajbahadur Gour

  8 November 2011, by Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy

  With the passing away of Dr Rajbahadur Gour, one of the heroes of the Telangana armed struggle, one of the last links of the present generation with the past in the Hyderabad state has snapped. Comrade Raj, as he was popularly known in Hyderabad, was 94 when he breathed his last on October 7.
  Raj was born in a middle class Kayasth family in the Old City of Hyderabad. His ancestors migrated from the Faizabad district of UP and settled in Hyderabad. Raj belonged to the third generation (…)

• Guiding Principles for Acquisition of Land by the Government

  8 November 2011, by Syed Shahabuddin

  The draft Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2011, introduced in the Lok Sabha on November 7, 2011, stands referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development. The Committee invited views and suggestions from the public but gave such a short time that it was not possible for interested individuals or organisations to submit detailed memoranda to the Committee.
  A first glance, however, shows that the draft Bill constitutes a great advance on the Act of (…)

• On the Ramayanas Affair

  8 November 2011, by Mukul Dube

  The Delhi University’s Academic Council decided, in the firt half of October 2011, to remove from its “concurrent course in history” for all BA (Hons) students, A.K. Ramanujan’s essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation”. At the direction of the Supreme Court in July 2010, four experts had been asked to give their views on the essay to the Academic Council. The opinion of only one of these experts went against the essay and led to the decision. (…)

• Realising Telangana State: Issues, Apprehensions and Hope

  8 November 2011

  by Madhusudan Bandi
  1. Context
  The closer a government to its people, the better it works is how Stigler (1957) defined effective governance. And the demand for ‘Telangana’, if looked purely from this theoretical perspective, appears to hold substance. It is the geographical and population-size that makes Telangana an ideal administrative unit befitting to be a State that would rank somewhere in the middle in the cluster of the 28 other States of India. However, the issue is not so (…)

• On Nikhil Chakravartty’s 98th Birth Anniversary

  8 November 2011

  November 3 this year marks Nikhil Chakravartty’s ninetyeighth birth anniversary. While remembering him on this occasion we are reproducing the following message sent to the Mainstream editor by Justice P.B. Sawant who was then the Chairman of the Press Council of India. This was published in the August 29, 1998 issue of this journal. We also reproduce the speech delivered by Justice Sawant at the inaugural session of a two-day seminar on the ‘Role of Media in Crisis Situations’ organised by (…)